by Неизвестный
"Susan, dear," her grandmother said, her voice all low and soothing, "you're not well. We're sorry for it and a bit stunned, since this sort of thing has never before been in the family except, of course, for your uncle Geoffrey.
"We can't give you money because you could use it to hurt yourself even more. If you would just sit down here, even stay the night, we will call Doctor Beader-meyer and he can come and get you. Trust us, dear."
"Yes, Susan, trust us. We've always loved you, always wanted the best for you."
"You mean the way you sent your daughter, my mother, back to a man who beat her?"
"Susan!"
"It's true, and both of you know it. He beat the living shit out of her whenever he felt like it."
"Don't use that kind of word in front of your grandmother, Susan," her grandfather said, and she saw that mouth of his go stern and tight.
She just looked at him, wondering why she'd even come here, but still, she had to try. She had to have money.
"I tried to protect Noelle for years, but I couldn't save her because she let him do it-do you hear me?-Noelle let him beat her. She was just like all those pathetic women you hear about."
"Don't be stupid, Susan," her grandmother said in a voice that could have crushed gravel. "Your grandfather and I have discussed this, and we know that battered wives are weak and stupid women. They're dependent. They have no motivation. They have no desire to better themselves. They aren't able to leave their situations because they've bred like rabbits and the men they're married to drink and don't have any money."
"Your grandmother is perfectly correct, Susan. They aren't our kind at all. They are to be pitied, certainly, but don't ever put your dear mother in that class."
"Amabel told me how Noelle came here once-it was early on in her marriage-and told you both what my father was doing. You didn't want to hear about it. You insisted she go back. You turned her away. You were horrified. Did you even think she was making it up?"
Sally thought for a wild moment that this was surely the wrong way to go about getting money from them. She hadn't realized all this resentment toward them was bottled up inside her.
"We will not speak of your mother to you, Susan," her grandmother said. She nodded slightly to her husband, but Susan saw it. He took a step toward her. She wondered if he would try to hold her down and tie her up and call Doctor Beadermeyer. In that moment, she truly wanted him to try. She wouldn't mind hitting that tight, mean mouth of his that masked weakness and preached platitudes.
She took a step back, her hands in front of her. "Listen, I need some money. Please, if you have any feeling for me at all, give me some money."
"What are you wearing, Susan? That's a man's jacket. What have you done? You haven't harmed some innocent person, have you? Please, what have you done?"
She'd been a fool to come here. What had she expected? They were so set in their ways that a bulldozer couldn't budge them. They saw things one way, only one-her grandmother's way.
"You're not well, are you, Susan? If you were, you wouldn't be wearing those clothes that are so distasteful. Would you like to lie down for a while and we can call Doctor Beadermeyer?"
Her grandfather was moving toward her again now, and she knew then that he would try to hold her here.
She had a trump card, and she played it. She even smiled at the two old people who perhaps had loved her once, in their way. "The FBI is after me. They'll be here soon. You don't want the FBI to get me, do you, Grandfather?"
He stopped cold and looked at his wife, whose face had paled.
She said, "How could they possibly know you were coming here?"
"I know one of the agents. He's smarter than anyone has a right to be. He also has this gut instinct about things. I've seen him in action. Count on it. He'll be here soon now with his partner. If they find me here, they'll take
me back. Then everything will come out. I'll tell the world how my father-that larger-than-life, very rich lawyer- beat my mother and how you didn't care, how you ignored it, how you pretended everything was fine, happy to bask in the additional glory that such a successful son-in-law brought you."
"You're not a very nice girl, Susan," her grandmother said, two spots of bright red appearing on her very white cheeks. Anger, probably. "It's because you're ill, you know. You didn't used to be this way."
"Give me money and I'll be out of here in a flash. Keep talking, and the FBI will be here and haul me off."
Her grandfather didn't look at his wife this time. He pulled out his wallet. He didn't count the money, just took out all the bills, folded them, and thrust them toward her. He didn't want to touch her. She wondered about that again. Was he afraid he'd go nuts if he did?
"You should immediately drive back to Doctor Beadermeyer," he said to her, speaking slowly, as if she were an idiot. "He'll protect you. He'll keep you safe from the police and the FBI."
She stuffed the bills into her jeans pocket. It was a tight fit. "Good-bye, and thank you for the money." She paused a moment, her hand on the doorknob. “What does either of you know about Doctor Beadermeyer?''
"He came highly recommended, dear. Go back to him. Do as your grandfather says. Go back."
"He's a horrible man. He held me prisoner there. He did terrible things to me. But then again, so did my father. Of course, you wouldn't believe that, would you? He's so wonderful-rather, he was so wonderful. Doesn't it bother you that your son-in-law was murdered? That's rather low on the social ladder, isn't it?"
They just stared at her.
"Good-bye." But before she could leave the room, her grandmother called out, “Why are you saying things like this, Susan? I can't believe that you're doing this. Not just to us but to your poor mother as well. And what about your dear husband? You're not telling lies about him, are you?"
"Not a one," Sally said and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her. She grinned briefly.
Cecilia was standing there in the hall. She said, "I didn't call the cops. No one else is here. You don't have to worry. But hurry, Miss Susan, hurry."
"Do I know you?"
“No, but my mama always took care of you when your parents brought you here every year. She said you were the brightest little bean and so sweet. She told me how you could write the greatest poems for birthday cards. I still have several cards she made me that have your poems on them. Good luck, Miss Susan."
"Thank you, Cecilia."
"I'm Agent Quinlan and this is Agent Savich. Are Mr. and Mrs. Harrison here?"
"Yes, sir. Come with me, please." Cecilia led them to the study, just as she'd led Sally Brainerd here thirty minutes before. She closed the door after they'd gone in. She thought the Harrisons were now watching the Home Shopping Network. Mr. Harrison liked to see how the clothes hawked there compared with his.
She smiled. She wasn't about to tell them that Sally Brainerd now had money, although she didn't know how much she'd gotten from that niggardly old man. Only as much as Mrs. Harrison allowed him to give her. She wished Sally good luck.
Sally stopped at an all-night convenience store and bought herself a ham sandwich and a Coke. She ate outside, well under the lights in front of the store. She waited until the last car had pulled out, then counted her money.
She laughed and laughed.
She had exactly three hundred dollars.
She was so tired she was weaving around like a drunk. The laughter was still bubbling out. She was getting hysterical.
A motel, that was what she needed, a nice, cheap motel. She needed to sleep a good eight hours, then she could go on.
She found one outside of Philadelphia-the Last Stop Motel. She paid cash and endured the look of the old man who really didn't want to let her stay but couldn't bring himself to turn away the money she was holding in her hand.
Tomorrow, she thought, she would have to buy some clothes. She'd do it on a credit card and only spend $49.99. Fifty dollars was the cutoff, wasn't it?
She won
dered, as she finally fell asleep on a bed that was wonderfully firm, where James was.
"Where to now, Quinlan?"
"Let me stop thinking violent thoughts. Damn them. Sally was there. Why wouldn't they help us?"
"They love her and want to protect her?"
"Bullshit. I got cold when I got within three feet of them."
"It was interesting what Mrs. Harrison said," Dillon said as he turned on the ignition in the Porsche. "About Sally being ill and she hoped soon she would be back with that nice Doctor Beadermeyer."
"I'll bet you a week's salary that they called the good doctor the minute Sally was out of there. Wasn't it strange the way Mrs. Harrison tried to make Mr. Harrison look like the strong, firm one? I'd hate to go toe-to-toe with that old battle-ax. She's the scary one in that family. I wonder if they gave her any money."
"I hope so," James said. "It makes my belly knot up to think of her driving a clunker around without a dime to her name."
"She's got your credit cards. If they didn't give her any money, she'll have to use them."
"I'll bet you Sally is dead on her rear. Let's find a motel, and then we can take turns calling all the motels in the area."
They stayed at a Quality Inn, an approved lodging for FBI agents. Thirty minutes later, Quinlan was staring at the phone, just staring, so surprised he couldn't move.
"You found her? This fast?"
"She's not five miles from here, at a motel called the Last Stop. She didn't use her real name, but the old man thought she looked strange, what with that man's coat she was wearing and those tight clothes he said made her look like a hooker except he knew she wasn't, and that's why he let her stay. He said she looked scared and lost."
"Glory be," Dillon said. "I'm not all that tired anymore, Quinlan."
"Let's go."
18
SALLY TOOK OFF her clothes-peeled the jeans off, truth be told, because they were so tight-and lay on the bed in her full-cut girl's cotton panties that Dillon had bought for her. She didn't have a bra, which was why she had to keep James's coat on. The bra Dillon had bought-a training bra-she could have used when she was eleven years old.
The bed was wonderful, firm-well, all right, hard as a rock, but that was better than falling into a trough. She closed her eyes.
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Through the cheap drapes she could see an all-night flashing neon sign: HOT HARVEY'S TOPLESS GIRLS.
Great part of town she'd chosen.
She closed her eyes again, turned on her side, and wondered where James was. In Washington? She wondered what Noelle had said to him and Dillon. Why hadn't Noelle told her the truth about that night? Maybe she would have if there'd been more time. Maybe. Had Noelle told her the truth, that both her father and her husband had conspired to put her in Beadermeyer's sanitarium? Both of them? And Noelle had bought it?
She wondered if her grandparents had called Doctor Beadermeyer, and if the Nazi was on his way to Philadelphia. No, he'd wait. He wouldn't want to chase shadows, and that's exactly what she was and planned to be.
No one could catch her now. The three hundred dollars would get her to Maine. She'd go to Bar Harbor, get a job, and survive. The tourists would flow in in only three months, then she would have more cover than she'd ever need. No one would find her there. She knew she was seeing Bar Harbor through a seven-year-old's eyes, but it had been so magical; surely it couldn't be all that different now.
Where was James? He was close, she just knew it. She hadn't exactly felt him close, but as she'd told her grandparents, he was smarter than he had a right to be.
She devoutly hoped he was at home in Washington, in bed fast asleep, the way she should be right now but wasn't. How close was he?
"Damnation," she said aloud. She thought about it a few more minutes, then got out of bed. She would just get to Bar Harbor sooner than expected. Still, she'd spent $27.52 on this room. To waste that money was appalling, but she couldn't sleep.
She was out of the room within five minutes. She revved up her motorcycle and swung batk onto the road, the garish lights from Hot Harvey's Topless Girls haloing around her helmeted head. It was odd, she thought, as she passed a Chevrolet-she would have sworn that James was nearby. But that wasn't possible.
James was the navigator and on the lookout for the Last Stop Motel. When she pulled out not fifty feet ahead of them, at first he couldn't believe it. He shouted, "Good God. Wait, Dillon, wait. Stop."
"Why, what's wrong?"
"My God, it's Sally."
"What Sally? Where?"
"On the motorcycle. I'd recognize my coat anywhere. She didn't buy a clunker, she bought a motorcycle. Let's go, Dillon. Jesus, what if we'd been thirty seconds later?"
"You're sure? That's Sally on that motorcycle? Yeah, you're right, that is your coat. It looks moth-eaten even from here. How do you want me to curb her in? It could be dangerous, what with her on that damned bike."
"Hang back for a while and let's think about this."
Dillon kept the Porsche a good fifty feet behind Sally.
"That was a smart thing she did," Dillon said. "Buying a motorcycle."
"They're dangerous as hell. She could break her neck riding that thing."
"Stop sounding like you're her husband, Quinlan."
"You want me to break your upper lip? Hey, what's going on here?"
Four motorcycles passed the Porsche and accelerated toward the single motorcycle ahead.
"Damn," Dillon said. "This is all we need. A gang, you think?"
"Why not? Our luck has sucked so far. How many rounds of ammunition do you have?''
"Enough," Dillon said briefly, his hands still loose and relaxed on the steering wheel, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. Traffic was very light going out of Philadelphia at this time of night.
"You feeling like the Lone Ranger again?"
"Why not?"
The four motorcycles formed a phalanx around Sally.
Just don't panic, Sally, Quinlan said over and over to himself. Just don't panic.
She'd never been so scared in her life. She had to laugh at that. Well, to tell the truth, at least she hadn't been this scared in the last five hours. Four of them, all guys, all riding gigantic Harleys, all of them in dark leather jackets. None of them was wearing a helmet. She should tell them they were stupid not to wear helmets. Maybe they didn't realize she was female. She felt her hair slapping against her shoulders. So much for that prayer.
What to do? More to the point, what would James do?
He'd say she was outnumbered and to get the hell out of there. She twisted the accelerator grip hard, but the four of them did the same, seemingly content for the moment just to keep their positions, hemming her in and scaring the hell out of her.
She thought of her precious two hundred and seventy something dollars, all the money she had in the world. No, she wouldn't let them take that money. It was all she had.
She shouted to the guy next to her, "What do you want? Go away!"
The guy just laughed and called out, "Come with us. We've got a place up ahead you'll like."
She yelled, "No, go away!" Was the idiot serious? He wasn't a fat, revolting biker, like the stereotype was usually painted. He was lean, his hair was cut short, and he was wearing glasses.
He swerved his bike in closer, not a foot from her now. He called out, "Don't be afraid. Come with us. We're turning off at the next right. Al-the guy on your right- he's got a nice cozy little place not five miles from here. You could spend some time with us, maybe sack out. We figure you must have rolled some guy for that coat, whatever, it doesn't matter. Hey, we're good solid citizens. We promise."
"Yeah, right," she shouted, "just like the pope. You want me to come with you so you can rob me and rape me and probably kill me. Go to hell, buster!"
She sped up. The bike shot forward. She could have sworn she heard laughter behind her. She felt the gun in James's coat pocket. She leaned down close to the
handlebars and prayed.
"Let's go, Dillon."
Dillon accelerated the Porsche and honked at the bikers, who swerved to the side of the highway. They heard curses and shouts behind them. Quinlan just grinned.
"Let's just keep us between her and the bikers," Quinlan said. "What do you think, Dillon? Are we going to have to follow her until she runs out of gas?''
"I can get ahead of her, brake hard, and swing the car across the road in front of her."
"Not with the bikers still back there, we can't. Just stay close."